Suicide

I’ve been thinking about suicide recently. Not for me personally, just in general. Though I have thought about it in the abstract in the past, I even figured out what I’d do.

The thing is I couldn’t. It’s not that I don’t think I could do the actual deed, it’s just that I couldn’t put my 4 most precious girls through the pain and loss.

And that’s what’s got me thinking. Fear of going to hell wouldn’t stop me. I’m loved by God, forgiven by God, and I don’t think committing suicide would prevent God from loving me and welcoming me into his heavenly presence. Indeed It even got me thinking that probably more Christians should be thinking about suicide - I mean isn’t heaven the ultimate destination?

But the cut is the pain that it would cause others – it’s a dilemma really.

So what is the theological standing on suicide? I don’t know. Should Christians really fantasise about suicide? Probably. But not in the usual way. If we think more about what the deed would do to those who know us. Really think about the pain we would cause, and then we’d know just how much these people mean to us.

Now if we focused on these people and decided to show them just how much we love them. Not just in the normal hey you’re great way, but in the; what if this is my last chance to leave a lasting impression with this person kind of way. In the, what if I actually die tomorrow kind of way.

If we treated each day as if we were going to commit suicide tomorrow we wouldn’t worry about the trivial things. We’d probably be more generous. More generous with our material things, more generous with our time, our ears (listening), our love and commitment. We’d strive to get our life in order, to seek forgiveess and offer forgiveness, depending on circumstances.

And if we lived everyday like this, it would slowly start to go beyond the people we know and love to the random people we meet everyday.